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Isaac Winslow (1671-1738)
}} Biography Honorable Isaac Winslow was an early settler and notable of the town of Marshfield, Massachusetts. A member of the prominent Winslow family of Plymouth Colony, he served as a civil and military official in early 18th-century Massachusetts, a period marked by political transition. Early Life Isaac Winslow was the grandson of Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow (1595-1655), a governor of Plymouth Colony and one of that colony's near-mythical "Pilgrims". Isaac's father, Josiah Winslow (1628-1680), also served as governor of Plymouth Colony, and as commander-in-chief of the colonial English forces during King Philip's War. His parents were honored on the Green Harbor Monument as one of the early founders of Marshfield MA in Plymouth Colony. Winslow was born ca. 1671 on the family estate in the village of Marshfield.2 His parents were Josiah Winslow and Penelope (Pelham) Winslow.3 Of this generation of the family, Isaac and his sister Elizabeth (born April 8, 1664) were the only children to survive to adulthood, a sister and brother having each died within a year of their birth.4 Somewhere around the turn of the 17th century, Isaac built a house at the current intersection of Careswell Street and Webster Street in Marshfield, which still exists as the Historic 1699 Winslow House. Plymouth County Justice Active in local affairs, Winslow was appointed to the Plymouth County Inferior Court of Common Pleas in 1712, and served until 1738, for the last nine years as its chief justice. In 1715, he was commissioned a colonel in the Massachusetts militia and given charge of a regiment drawn from Plymouth County, and was a judge of the Court of Probate for Plymouth from 1718 to 1738.8 A decade after Plymouth's incorporation into Massachusetts, Winslow became prominent at a wider colonial level. In 1703, he was appointed for the first time to the Council for the Province of Massachusetts Bay. As a representative in the legislature's upper house, he and his fellow councilors were to serve as advisors to the Royal Governor in Boston, as well as passing laws and approving government expenditures. Winslow's term in council was marked by a period of war and turbulent politics; Massachusetts was almost constantly fighting New England natives and French colonists in Canada, and several successive governors would clash with the lower House of Representatives on issues of finance and legislative appointments. With the exception of 1715, Winslow served as a member of the council until 1736, for a time as its president. Winslow House Museum His house, the 1699 Winslow House, still stands today at 64 Careswell St, Marshfield MA. It has been converted into a historic house museum providing a glimpse into the lives of New England landed gentry prior to the Revolutionary War. The Isaac Winslow House is the ancestral home of the founding family of Marshfield and was considered an avant-garde South Shore mansion. Built by Judge Isaac Winslow, the house is virtually untouched by modernization. It has been occupied by a family of governors, generals, doctors, lawyers and judges who helped to create Marshfield and the South Shore. It survives as an example of how well-to-do landed gentry, particularly Loyalists, lived in the years prior to the American Revolutionary War. Marriage & Family On July 11, 1700, he married Sarah Wensley of Boston, in a ceremony presided over by the Reverend Cotton Mather.6 The marriage produced six children; # Josiah Winslow (1701-1724) # John Winslow (1703-1774) - Major General in the British Army in the Americas. Key commander during French & Indian Wars. # Penelope Winslow (1704-1737) # Elizabeth Winslow (1707-1761) # Anna Winslow (1709-1723) # Edward Winslow (1714-1784) - Loyalist leader in New England, his home is now the museum for the Mayflower Society. References * [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0282343253/maintourvacationA/ Winslow Memorial, Vol. 1] : Family Records of Winslows and Their Descendants in America, With the English Ancestry as Far as Known; Winslow Family(Classic Reprint) - Tracing family roots of the descendants these early Plymouth Colony settlers back to England. * Winslow in Plymouth County, Massachusetts - first families history * Isaac Winslow House - Wikipedia * WinslowHouse.org - Museum Website * Winslow House Historical Society * Isaac Winslow - Disambiguation page